There were times when it looked like Marquette would stun the No. 6 Xavier Musketeers. However, the Golden Eagles couldn’t do enough of the small things in a dispiriting 91-87 loss to open conference play.
MARKUS HOWARD HITS ROUGH PATCH
It’s not often that sophomore guard Markus Howard, Marquette’s leading scorer with 21.8 points per game, is out of sync on offense, but that’s precisely what happened against Xavier.
Howard scored 13 points, but went six-of-19 from the field and only one-of-eight on 3-pointers. Aside from an 0-for-5 performance against LSU, it was his worst performance from beyond the arc this season.